


Top Design with Shadow Moon

by LadyShadowWalker



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: American Gods - Freeform, Book Spoilers, Gen, alcohol consumption, is this the first AG fanfic?, not sure what tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 18:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7981747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowWalker/pseuds/LadyShadowWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after American Gods but before the Postscript. Mr Nancy cons Shadow into helping out his neighborhood and Shadow ropes Mad Sweeney into their project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Top Design with Shadow Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not even going to attempt writing in Mr Gaiman’s style because he is a literary god and that would be blasphemous but I am stealing his characters. A prompt submitted and inspired by [this tweet from Orlando Jones](https://twitter.com/TheOrlandoJones/status/763871169443266560/). As always, I have trouble following directions and strayed from the prompt.

* * *

Shadow didn’t stay in Chicago long, driving southeast and passing through Nashville before hitting I-75 in Chattanooga. He ignored the signs for Rock City, not wanting to be reminded so soon of the war he recently averted. As he crossed into Florida, he stopped at a gas station, fondly thinking of Laura and her erstwhile job as a cashier. Their marriage had its trials, some that went beyond the usual “’til death do us part” section of their vows. In life, he had stuck her on a pedestal and she had taken advantage of his over-infatuation. In death, she had protected him from enemies he hadn’t known existed and accused him of never having truly lived. And he hadn’t, not until he died on that tree.

Once he got on the road again, he opted to take the A1A along the Florida coast, hitting the outskirts of Fort Pierce by mid-afternoon. Mr Nancy wasn’t home so Shadow sat down on the front porch and waited. There were kids playing ball in the empty lot across the street from Mr Nancy’s, their joyful shouts and happy hollers echoing and reverberating through the poor, working class neighborhood.

Mr Nancy had asked him if he were happy. _“Call no man happy until he is dead._ “ Shadow had quoted Herodotus in reply as an ironic excuse for his own unhappiness, having already died once yet still expecting to soon die again by Czernobog’s hammer. Later that night, Nancy had taken him out drinking with the only pressure on him to sing in public and he had experienced a fleeting moment of happiness he was now trying to recapture.

“Shadow?” Mr Nancy soon came up the sidewalk, a fishing pole hanging over his shoulder. “Wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

“Wasn’t expecting to come back,” replied Shadow as he stood up to greet the old man. He looked worse than the last time Shadow had seen him, his eyes were sunken into his face, his dark skin a sickly pallor.

“Czernobog let you off easy?”

Shadow nodded. “He said it had been a long, long winter.”

Mr Nancy laughed. “So why’d you come back here, then?”

“I left in a hurry last time and wanted to say a proper goodbye.”

“Are you planning on stickin’ around longer this time, Shadow-boy?” asked Mr Nancy as he led Shadow inside his one-story home, past piles of documents and books on architecture and to the kitchen, that ancient, sweet smell still lingering in the air.

“Not too much longer,” said Shadow, nodding his thanks for the bottle of beer Nancy passed him. He was running away, leaving his old life and his memories behind. He was trapped in this country and needed to escape, to nurse his wounds and heal his soul. It didn’t matter the reason, but putting an ocean between him and a life among the gods that he did not want sounded like a good idea.

They wandered back through the house and outside again, sitting down on the porch and falling into a comfortable silence. They sipped their beers while Nancy puffed and sucked on his cigarillo, coughing every now and again on the smoke as they watched the kids playing in the last bit of daylight left before they were called home for dinner.

“I’ve lived in this town for sixty years, Shadow.” Mr Nancy broke the silence first. “Moved into this house a few years back and have seen firsthand this neighborhood deteriorating. It’s a shame they don’t have a real park to play in ever since Hurricane Frances.”

“You’re a god. You could do something.”

“Like what?”

Shadow shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe buy that lot and turn it into a park for them?”

“I’m too old and too tired.” Mr Nancy sighed heavily. “Have I told you the story about Brah Dead?”

“Yes,” replied Shadow. Three times already; once on the way to Kansas, once on the way to Virginia, and once on the way to Florida.

Nancy either didn’t hear him or didn’t care and launched into his fourth rendition of how Anansi the Spider outsmarted Death when he discovered Death couldn’t climb.

“See those spider webs?” Mr Nancy pointed to a corner of the porch. “That is Kweku Anansi still tryin’ to get away from Death.” He fell silent for a moment, contemplating the label on his beer bottle before letting out a raspy, exhausted sigh. “I’ve been spinnin’ cobwebs for a while now, Shadow-boy.”

Shadow might have stopped Mr Wednesday’s war, but the old gods were still dying out. Many had joined the cause hoping for one last battle, one last fight so they could go out on their own terms. Shadow had taken that away from them, leaving them neglected, unloved, and forgotten as they continued fading away into insignificance.

There had been a moment not long ago when Shadow sat next to Mr Wednesday on an airplane and wanted to reach out to him in comfort. He regretted not being able to help Mr Wednesday but maybe he could help Mr Nancy and give an old man some peace before he died.

“I saw your books on architecture,” said Shadow. “Wouldn’t you like to do something with that? One last hurrah for a town you’ve called home for the last sixty years?”

Mr Nancy gave a long pull on his cigarillo as he contemplated Shadow’s proposal. “We would need money, but not from the usual sources. Don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “And what about when you leave? I’m not going to be stuck doing the work. How soon are you leavin’ anyway?”

“Soon as I have enough money for a one-way ticket out of here.” As he spoke the words, a sense of déjà vu overcame him. “Mr Nancy, do you know anyone who can talk to the dead?”

“Maybe.” Mr Nancy took a swig of beer. “Depends on who you’re tryin’ to contact.”

“Mad Sweeney.”

Mr Nancy laughed. “You don’t need any psychic for that. Just a bottle of whiskey.”

* * *

“All right, Mad Sweeney. Here you go, you sad son of a bitch.” Shadow slammed a shot glass on the kitchen table and poured some Jameson into it for Sweeney. “Come talk to us.”

“Not like that. We have to _invoke_ him.” Mr Nancy cleared his throat. “Mad Sweeney was a mighty king in Northern Ireland before being cursed.” Mr Nancy paused with a frown. “Mr Ibis is better at this sort of storytelling. I like mine to have morals at the end.” Mr Nancy lifted his glass to Shadow’s and they tossed back the shot.

Shadow poured another round of whiskey as he tried to recollect what had been said at Mad Sweeney’s wake. “He was cursed by the church to be remembered as an insane king instead of a god.”

“You were listening, man.” Mad Sweeney now sat in the empty chair behind the shot of whiskey they had set out for him, his incorporeal form glimmering and shimmering. “They got one thing right. I am indeed mad.”

“How about we break that curse and have you be remembered for something else instead?” asked Shadow.

Sweeney drank the shot of whiskey, the contents visibly traveling down his still semi-transparent throat. “What did you have in mind?”

“There’s this lot across the street from Mr Nancy’s and we want to buy it and turn it into a park for the kids.”

“You’d be our financial backer,” said Mr Nancy. “And our muscle.”

“Did you already forget how to pull from the horde like I taught you?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” said Shadow briefly wondering if he should mention he had returned the gold coin. “I’m just not going to be around for much longer.”

“You start a project and leave me to fucken finish it?”

“You and Mr Nancy.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Resurrection. A whole new generation who believes in leprechauns, who believes in Mad Sweeney. You get a second chance to be remembered for more than being a crazy, drunk Irishman.”

“How about I just fucken fight you for it?”

Shadow sighed. “All right.”

“Let’s have a drink first,” said Mr Nancy even though that was exactly what they were already doing.

They left Mr Nancy’s house and walked through the sticky Florida heat to the bar at the end of the street. Two previously dead men and an almost-dead man.

“I’ll buy the first round,” said Mr Nancy, letting Shadow know they were going to be having more than _a_ drink.

By the time Mr Nancy returned with their drinks, Mad Sweeney was already pushing Shadow to sign up for karaoke.

“Put him down for ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,’” said Nancy as he slid the beers across the table. “I get to sing first, though.” Mr Nancy took the mike from Mad Sweeney’s beefy fist and made his way to the stage. He nodded at the barman who queued up Nancy’s signature song. The beginning notes played as Nancy lit a cigarillo, taking a long drag before belting out, “What’s new, pussycat? Wow-wow-Wow-oo!”

Mad Sweeney laughed and sang along, cheering and whistling as Nancy finished, “…You and your pussycat noooooose!” He bought another round of drinks before sending Shadow onstage to do his introductory song.

The backing tape started and the familiar notes reached Shadow’s ears, taking him back to just days earlier when Nancy had first forced him to sing in public. It was easier the second time, his voice looser and more practiced, the growing audience less intimidating.

Sweeney took the stage next, choosing none other than Velvet Underground’s ‘Who Loves the Sun,’ seemingly growing fuller and brighter the more the crowd responded to him. Nancy dragged Shadow onstage to sing backup vocals, the three of them crooning and laughing their way to a standing ovation from the bar patrons.

More songs were picked, more rounds were bought, more singing, more drinking. Stumbling and happy, they walked back to Mr Nancy’s home in the wee hours of the morning. Tonight, Sweeney and Nancy had given Shadow camaraderie and companionship, a final happy memory before he left America behind; a reminder that there was perhaps something worth returning home for.

“What are you plannin’ to do next, Shadow-boy?” asked Mr Nancy as he tripped up a curb.

Shadow hiccuped politely before replying, “As soon as I have enough money, I’m buying the next plane ticket out of this country.”

“You’ll be back,” replied Sweeney with cheerful certainty. “But right now, you still owe me a fight.” He immediately collected on that debt with a fist to Shadow’s face.


End file.
